Numerous machines are already known in the art for applying sleeves or sheathings wherein a section of sheathing is placed around an object held in a conveying means with a mandrel, held if necessary in support, for example with rollers made to cause the section of the mandrel to slide toward the object. In particular, it is known that it is imperative that the lower end of the mandrel and the object be in perfect alignment to do this. More specifically, it is necessary that the object be held upright in a stable manner and strictly in a vertical position.
Because of this, there are numerous problems with the present apparatus when it involves placing sleeves on to small-diameter objects, such as lighters, lipsticks, pencils, toothpaste tubes, etc., because of the lack of stability of this type of object, as well as because the upright position of the article on its base is not always completely vertical.
The present invention, therefore, aims to eliminate the inherent drawbacks in sleeve-placing apparatus of the prior art and to propose a sleeve-placing apparatus which is perfectly suited for sheathing of small-diameter objects, or more generally, of any object whose sheathing in vertical position is difficult or impossible to achieve under satisfactory conditions. This sheathing is performed with rates comparable to those obtained with conventional machines.